Starting in July, QM is implementing a number of changes related to the course review process to improve the rigor of reviews and to provide more services to subscribers. These changes include naming protocols, new …

OER Can Strengthen Adaptive Learning

You know OER for its free and accessible content, but do you know OER for its major role in adaptive learning? Wiley, A.P. of Instructional Psychology and Technology at BYU, describes the future plans of forward-thinking company Knewton, which developed a learning platform that adapts to an individual’s best learning methods by using data to analyze student performance and the relevance of the educational content. Currently, Knewton’s platform contains a lot of publisher content. By filling its platform with OER, the company can maneuver the costs so that students can learn (for free) through a personalized, adaptive experience based on OER in an emerging, AI-like platform. (Read about Knewton, its roots, and its goals.)

Wiley Teases with OER Can’t-Mentionables

What you’re allowed to know: A few years ago, Wiley started a project Open High School of Utah, a school that committed to using only OER. Open High School has succeeded and is ranked in the state’s top 10% of high schools for academic performance. This summer, a community college on the east coast will announce a big change for students. One of the school’s associate’s degree program will leave behind the pricey textbooks and shift into OER. Students can achieve a degree without spending on traditional textbooks. What’s next for Open High School? What school is shifting an entire degree program to OER? We’ll have to wait for the full stories–stay tuned for the update.

Celebrate a Birthday and a Declaration

Happy Birthday Creative Commons! CC turned ten in December; among its first-decade achievements is rallying government resources and open licensing (read more here). CC also celebrated its birthday online December 7 to 16 (make sure to click at the top of the Web page to view all ten days). While you’re still celebrating great news, read about Paris’s OER Declaration, which among many things, called on Governments to support the development and use of OERs. Green, CC’s director of Global Learning, expresses how this declaration is a feat for anyone driving and supporting Open Policy. Watch Green’s entertaining, informative discussion The Obviousness of Open Policy at the 17th Annual Sloan Consortium (starts on slide 15, or 00:12:10).

Open Policy on Opening Globally

If you buy one, you should get one–Dr. David Wiley (via Dr. Cable Green) Green explains Open Policy as the arrangement that “if public funds are used to build something, the public should have access to what it paid for”. Contrary to this arrangement, the public pays to build something, but does not have access to what it paid for–Green says this happens often in the US with our public tax dollars and educational content and research. To help the public access what it paid for, CC is working with the government and with foundations so when they grant money to an entity, they require that entity to license the work with a Creative Commons Attribution License for content and a CC0 for data, which puts the data into the public domain. (Read about CC’s licenses.)

Share Your Experiences with Us

Tell us your thoughts on Wiley’s and Green’s discussion. How have you, your institution, or state benefited from OER? Are you looking forward to any next steps by Creative Commons? Please add your comments in the section below.By Robin Bartoletti Director, Academic Quality and Communities

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